One Another

 

Text: James 5:13-20

Focus: Encouragement

Function: to help people see how we can encourage each other

¹³Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. ¹⁴Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. ¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. ¹⁷Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. ¹⁸Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.

¹⁹My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, ²⁰you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

I believe that I inherited a gift from my father. He died young, at 67 and he was a preacher of grace. My dad exemplified what it says in the verse, is anyone cheerful, they should sing songs of praise. My dad always had a song of praise in his heart.

And I was raised in an hell fire and brimstone denomination. Every Sunday, it seemed as if I needed to go to the altar when someone other than my dad was preaching because I was convinced that all of my sin must mean that I truly did not yet believe. I was filled with shame from most of the preachers I heard. Except my dad. My dad, when he preached, preached the joy of serving Jesus, the love of God and the power of redemption. Dad cut his preaching teeth preaching the rescue missions and places where the down and out went because he knew that those were the kind of people that Jesus was most attracted to.

I had a dear head deacon once, who loved to discuss theology. One day, he said to me, that he believed that the primary mission of the church was to exhort each other and hold each other accountable.

I chewed on that for a few days as I pondered what he was asking me to do as a preacher.

To exhort and to hold one another accountable seemed like a noble cause to me, because in so doing, we keep the faith pure and we keep ourselves from worldly distractions. I believe in that. But the problem with the mindset is that we then have to sit back and judge ourselves and others by ours and their actions and it leaves, it seems to me that it leaves, room for us to judge and criticize one another.

The next time we were in discussion, I said to him that I thought it might serve my ministry better, and the mission of the church better if we changed those words slightly to reflect a more Spirit-led mindset. Why not say, instead of exhorting -which means to preach at, and holding accountable, which literally means to judge each other’s actions as if we could know the intentions of the heart.

The change I suggested was that we instead say that the mission of the church in regard to its members is to encourage and enable them for ministry.

I take my example from the way Jesus sent the apostles out early to do ministry work; He entrusted them while they were still babes in Christ because it is the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us that makes this faith of ours work out its practices in our lives.

To enable and to encourage is what this passage is about.

No doubt, we Brethren have seen this passage played out in ministry settings many times as we have observed an anointing service.

We have heard the scripture read, but during that powerful ordinance, during its liturgy, we don’t get a description of what it means.

The word for “Sick” in the phrase, “Is there any sick among you” is anemia. It translates directly into the English just as well to say, are any of you spiritually weak, or anemic?

Admit it and call for the elders of the church to pray over you.

It isn’t just for physical healing. More than anything, it is for encouragement and enabling so that we can continue to do the work that Jesus has called us to do for Him.

In this charge to enable and encourage each other through the power of the Holy Spirit, is the principle that we act in faith.

And I love the fact that James knows that at times our faith seems to be weak, or we seem to not know how or what to pray for. He reminds us that Elijah, the great prophet of God who worked miracle after miracle was not anything special. He was human, just like us.

He is not telling us that we are all just as powerful as Elijah was, but he is telling us that if we are people who are passionate about justice, God will answer our prayers. He did it for Elijah even to the point of causing a drought in the land for three years.

How did Elijah know to pray for it?

Remember last week we looked at James where he tells us that sometimes we pray with the wrong motive, we pray for our own needs and desires instead of the things that God has called us to in serving His family, the Kingdom of God, as it is here to bless the earth.

We are here with a mission, to continue the blessing of Christ Jesus to a world that is tainted by sin, evil and corruption. We are called to rise above it and to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves and not pick up on the dangerous and sinful political rhetoric of the world that we live in.

We are a blessing. God has called us to be the blessing. Elijah was in a desperate situation and he was full of the Spirit and God lead him to that prayer so that the people would see that God alone is God and to be worshiped.

And finally we conclude with another part of what it means to be an enabler. Some people do wander from the truth. I mentioned the deacon who was wrestling with forgiveness after 9/11, at least she was honest about her struggles. And that is part of what happens. We confess our doubts, insecurities and weaknesses to one another and one another brings one another back with love and encouragement.

I suppose it is the last part of this passage where my other deacon got the idea the the job of the church in regard to believers was to exhort and to hold accountable.

It is true, some people stray. Paul brings up the same idea in Galatians 6:”¹Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you are not tempted as well.”

I see a qualifier about who gets to do this. Those who are spiritual are called to intervene. What does it mean to be spiritual? Well, that is anyone’s guess. But it suggests that we be careful with ourselves. Remember Jesus’ parable about the log in our eye and the mote in our brother’s eye. Jesus told us to look at ourselves. I don’t love the sinner and hate the sin. I love the sinner and hate MY OWN sin.

And the keyword in the passage is to restore. So often, I have seen people who have confronted the sin in others thinking they were being spiritual but their goal was not to restore, but to prove themselves to be right. James warns us about jealousy and selfish ambition.

Restoration means an holistic approach. It is between them and God and between them and others. If it doesn’t include both, then it falls short of restoration. It isn’t punishment, but grace.

And it comes from the fact that God loves the one we are working with as much as God loves us.

Hopefully, the power of the Spirit working through the love of God will keep us in the right mindset to encourage and enable each others.